Double Exposure, not the CBC

Long weekends don't mean so much when you're retired. For most working people it's a bit of a chance to catch up on all the other stuff going on in life, or to sleep in. Lots of people don't get enough sleep, and maybe that's why there's so much crankiness happening these days. Trivial things blowing up to major incidents. 

Part of the adjustment to being retired is a routine. So far swimming 3 times a week, usually in the morning, is the most regular part of the routine. Some people start sleeping in once they don't have to get up and go to work, but that isn't the case for me. After I got off shift work and had my circadian rhythms settled down again, I found I was a morning person. Even when we were waking up at 5 to be at work for 7, I typically didn't need an alarm clock. And this was before we had Celina the alarm clock cat.

Now, I'm usually still up early, though Celina often helps. The morning routine of coffee and breakfast, reading news and social media goes quick. I've talked about how there aren't as many blogs to follow as there used to be, and there's lots less comments. Sometimes I'm writing or editing. Sometimes out for a photoramble if the light is nice. Today, for example, I had a film and digital shoot with some friends.

I'm on a bit of break between wine kits, since the first 4 are now bottled, and the store is still waiting for the last kit to arrive of the 3 remaining. There's been some supply chain issues, transportation snarls, and for a while they lost an entire pallet of wine kits. It will arrive sooner or later, and I'm planning a bit of a photo road trip when I get them.

Much of yesterday I was experimenting with negatives, looking for double exposure possibilities, and seeing how much I could zoom in on the negative to see how much detail is there. Lots. Part of the fun of photography is double exposures, where two images are overlaid to see both at once. Done right it makes for a rich and layered image. Done wrong it's a mess. 

Generally it's assumed the photographer does not want a double exposure, and the various camera manufacturers deal with this in different ways. Some of them have no controls and if you forget to wind on, the camera will happily expose the same square of film again and again. Most force you to wind on, and there's a procedure to do a double exposure. My GW690 makes it essentially impossible to take a double exposure. The only way is to finish a roll, rewind it in the dark back onto the original spool, load it into the camera again being very careful to start in exactly the same place, and shoot the roll again. This will produce 8 double exposures, and it's up to you to keep track of what each exposure was. As you might imagine, this is not terribly practical.

There is another way of cheating, and we tried that during the film shoot today. I won't know how it turned out till I get the negatives back. It involved low light, complicated timing, a hat, and cooperative models. The photographers reading this have probably already figured it out. 

Much simpler to overlay the negatives as desired and take a photo of that. My first experiment with that looks like this. One image is Michelle and Ken, the other is a shot of some fir trees in South Glenmore park that didn't work out the way I thought, but is perfect for this. I'm going to be doing more of this as I accumulate more negatives.

I like this version of it better.

Our latest TV binge is Castle, starring Nathan Fillion and Stana Katic. We're part way through season 2, and enjoying it so far. The actual murder of the week is typically easy to solve, though we've been stumped on a couple of them. We're more interested in the overall season arc, watching the interplay between the characters. It's good to see competent female characters in a leading role.

Relating to the double exposure idea, I've been thinking of a mashup combining Castle and Elementary, thinking of a New York with both casts interacting, perhaps as competitive precincts vying for top ranks in closing cases.

Of the Day

Driftwood

Peony

Lily

Celina

Film. This is the last 35mm shot,  done during a winter walk. I struggled with the composition on this, since the bridge and background lined up. I mainly like the colours and mood.